March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.’s
aircraft unit is set to reap the benefits of a weakening yen
after securing more than $4 billion of contracts for a new jet
when the currency was near a record high against the dollar.

Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp., which is making Japan’s first
regional passenger jet, pays for about 60 percent of the plane’s
materials and other costs in dollars, Chief Executive Officer
Hideo Egawa said in an interview in Tokyo on March 8. The planes
are sold in dollars and profit is booked in yen.

The aircraft maker won an order for 200 planes including
options, worth $8.4 billion at list prices last year from U.S.
commuter carrier SkyWest Inc. The yen touched a record high at
75.35 to the dollar in October 2011. The yen has slid since
Prime Minister’s Shinzo Abe’s party won the elections last year
as he pledged to work with the Bank of Japan to end 15 years of
deflation.

“We’re delighted with a weaker yen. We welcome it with
open arms,” said Egawa. “We’d like the yen to get even
cheaper.”

The yen traded at 96.18 to the dollar as of 1:18 p.m. in
Tokyo. The Japanese currency has slid 21 percent from 79.76 yen
since Mitsubishi Aircraft announced its SkyWest order.

325 Orders

The aircraft maker has won 325 orders, including options,
for the plane, topping the company’s goal of up to 250 planes
before the Mitsubishi Regional Jet’s first flight, set for as
early as October, Egawa said. The carrier is outselling rival
Bombardier Inc., which had secured 148 orders for its new
passenger jets by the end of December.

“When the yen was around 80 to the dollar we were
constantly looking for ways to cut costs,” said Egawa. “When
we convert our orders into yen it definitely gives us an edge.”

The planes both use variations of an engine being developed
by United Technologies Corp.’s Pratt & Whitney that will help
the planes cut 20 percent in fuel consumption.

The Nagoya, Japan-based company, is on target for the first
flight of the plane, which it began assembling in April 2011, by
the end of this year, Egawa said. The planemaker plans its first
delivery of the plane in the year ending March 31, 2016.

Mitsubishi Aircraft is building 78- and 92-seater versions
of the MRJ to compete with planes from Bombardier and Empresa
Brasileira de Aeronautica SA as it forecasts global demand for
5,000 similar-sized aircraft over the 20 years to 2030.